the best game

Ella's new best game is Laundry.  

Clean, dirty, wet, dry, in a pile, in a stack, scattered, thrown, pulled off the line, on Ammie's head, on her head.

This is not something that she gets from me, I HATE laundry. In all of its forms. Except clean, folded and in my wardrobe. Where it's not laundry, it's clothing. 

I'm softening though. Ella's delight in 'helping' me has made folding one of my new favourite jobs. Sure it now takes 40 minutes where it used to take 5 but those are 40 minutes of pure joy. Seriously. 

built on quarries.

The Offer
By Olivia McCannon

They made their highest offer on the house
The survey showed it was built on quarries
But they bought it anyway for the view.

The years brought shifts too small to be seen
Slipping right angles blurred by shadow
Fissures so fine they passed for webs – 

 Spasms on strings tugged by the streams that ran
Beneath them, turning up axes and rotting props
A sheep's skull, a rat's rail, a bird's beak – 

Omens in the foundations that glowed at night
In bed when the off-balance buzzed in their ears
When they felt the earth adjust for hollow weight. 

The collapse never came – they owned the threat of it
Like the snarling dog stopped by its chain. Theirs, too
The bricks around them, the space beneath them.

 • From Exactly My Own Length, published by Carcanet
from The Guardian's Saturday Poem series.

* photograph by Penelope Jonze 

today.

Today I haz hormones which means today I iz bitch. 

Sorry family. 

And complete strangers in the supermarket.

image. 

quack.

I can totally see what you have against us buying a houseboat. I mean, it's not like they're the cosiest, more romantic places to live in the world ever. Or like ducks look in your window. Or anything cool like that. 

(I know, I know, bad investment. Bite me.)  

* last image from House to Home* All other images by Pia Jane Bijkirk and via Sight Unseen and Pia's blog.

.

happy monday. 

Things (funk)

I'm in a funk. It's January. I hate January. January is one big funk until the end and then it's my birthday and then it's nearly spring and then I cheer up. 

Ammie has learned to kiss. She reaches over and plants her wide open mouth on your mouth and depending on whether or not you have stubble, leaves it there briefly or for absolutely ages. Then she pulls away, laughs then does it again. Sometimes she sticks her tongue in your mouth, sometimes she bites your lip. It's the best thing ever. 

Ella has started moving. Properly moving. Climbing and crawling and hurumphing and falling on her face. We never thought she would let herself fall on her face, that kid spent 6 months thinking about how best to stand up before she gave it a go. That she is hurumphing is kind of amazing. 

We did our first wedding of 2012, it was totally lovely. A pretty arty girl married a long-haired musical boy. The guests wore faux fur, tweed and vintage shoes. There was a gramophone dj and coloured pencils.

We're going to France again next month. I'm absolutely too tired for hairyplanes. If anyone would like to go in my place please apply in the comments. (high alcohol tolerance and GSOH essential.) 

We've been talking about buying a houseboat. Because throwing our money straight into the Thames in a suitcase would be too efficient. 

I cut my hair off. It's now too short to tie back and too long not to bug me all the time. I either need to wait for it to grow (patience) or cut it dead short (commitment). I don't know which of those things I'm worse at. 

*photograph by All The Love in the Universe, aka Pacing the Panic Room. They cure my funk.